Little Adventure
by IcelandicPuffinCat
Summary: Lucille, Magdalene, and Nathaniel are just normal kids until one day they find a chibi Italy near their house. They must take care of the young nation while trying to figure out how he got here and how to get him back. Easy, right? Unfortunately, they don't know how much of an adventure taking care of the pasta-loving nation will be!
1. Chapter 1

It was a normal day for 15-year-old Lucille Greene as she walked down the path she had taken every day for as long as she could remember. Her 13-year-old sister Magdalene and her 11-year-old brother Nathaniel trailed behind her, talking about something Lucille had no interest in whatsoever. School had just ended for the year, and the forest trail they always took home was beautiful like it always in the summer. The sunlight filtered through the trees, casting dappled shadows on Lucille's upturned face. She shifted her backpack a little and continued walking.

The path took a sharp turn to the right, and they were facing a small stream. It had no way across it unless you wanted to get your feet wet. There were stepping stones farther along it that they often crossed with. Nathaniel took off his shoes and jumped in the water before giving an uncharacteristically girly shriek and jumping out.

"It's cold! It's cold! It's coooooooooooold!" He shook the water off of his feet and used his socks to absorb the rest. Magdalene was doubled over from laughing. Nathaniel scowled at her and tried to put his shoes back on without socks. Lucille shook her head disdainfully.

"Just go barefoot. We'll be home soon anyway."

Lucille's sister ran up to her as they started walking again. "Have any new Hetalia episodes come out?"

Lucille thought for a moment. "No, but they might soon. The last one came out almost three weeks ago." The three of them were all hard-core Hetalia fans, but Lucille was the so-called 'expert'.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Lucille and Magdalene turned around. Nathaniel was running toward them, shoes and socks in hand. "You guys walk so fast. And I think I stepped on a piece of glass!" He stopped suddenly and grinned at them. "I'm a poet and I didn't even know it!"

Lucille face-palmed and told him to sit on a nearby rock. He lifted his foot for her to see what he stepped on. A look of confusion came over her face when she saw what it was. "This looks like a belt buckle. Or half of one, anyway. When did you find this in your foot?"

Nathaniel blinked at her. "When I was in the creek. It hurts. Could you take it out? Do you have a band-aid? Am I going to die?"

She sighed. Her brother was so overdramatic. Lucille looked at his face. His eyes were a little shinier than usual; having the jagged edge of the belt buckle in his foot was obviously a lot more painful than he was letting on.

Lucille heard water splashing and looked behind her. Magdalene was swishing her fingers around in the water. Lucille turned back to Nathaniel. "It's pretty stuck in there, and I don't carry band-aids with me everywhere. But we could wrap your sock around it when I take it out." He looked a little scared.

"But my sock is coooooooooooold. I don't wanna make my foot cold. Plus, couldn't bacteria and stuff from the creek get into it?" Little red droplets were beginning to leak out from around the metal buckle.

She looked at him harshly. "Would you rather get tetanus* from the metal?" Lucille figured he didn't even know what tetanus was but hopefully her tone would scare him enough to let her use his sock as a bandage.

Sure enough, he set his jaw and nodded before closing his eyes. "Just do it quick, 'kay?"

Lucille smiled a little. "I will. Be brave like America." America was her brother's favorite Hetalia character. Her smile faded when she looked at the steady stream of red again. She placed her fingers on the tip of it. "One, two…"

"HEY, LUCY! NAT! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" Magdalene's sudden shout surprised Lucille so much she pulled out the belt buckle unprofessionally (not like she was a professional anyway, but she liked to think of herself as one) and the cut started bleeding even more than before. Nathaniel let out a small cry, tears visible on his cheeks now. Lucille shot her sister a glare before pressing on the cut to stop the bleeding. Luckily, it didn't look like the buckle had gone very deep.

Magdalene stepped over and grimaced. "Ouch. Hey, look at this!" Lucille looked over and Nathaniel opened his eyes. In their sister's hand was half of a belt buckle.

Lucille frowned. "Maggie, can you pick up that piece there," she pointed with her foot, "and see if they go together?"

She did, wrinkling her nose at the bloodstained edge. "It's a perfect fit." She said, grinning a little. "That's cool! What a coincidence." Her grin faded suddenly. "Hey… doesn't this look like Italy's belt buckle, from Hetalia?" Lucille frowned. It did look a lot like Italy's, everything from the square shape to the tiny, almost invisible bits of blue fabric stuck to it.

She shrugged. "It's probably some cosplayer's buckle. We should get home." She wrapped the sock around Nathaniel's foot once she was sure it had stopped bleeding. He looked at her and smiled a little, always the optimist.

"It looks like you killed someone," he joked. She laughed. "Yeah, it does. Let me go wash this off, I'll be with you guys in a second. Maggie will carry your backpack, Nat." At Lucille's glare Magdalene sighed and shifted her own backpack to make room for his. They slowly walked down the stream to the stepping stones.

Lucille cleaned the blood off her hands in the creek as she watched them go. She was just finishing when she caught sight of something blue on the other side of the river. _I shouldn't go check it out._ She thought. _I told Maggie and Nat I'd catch up with them, and Nat says the water is freezing._ But, after a few minutes of arguing with herself, her curiosity won out. She took off her shoes and socks, unable to wait until she got to the stepping stones. She would meet her siblings on the other side.

Nimbly, she picked her way across to the other side, stepping on the shallowest spots. Her brother was right; the water was _cold._ Really cold. Her teeth were chattering by the time she reached the other side, even though the stream was only about six feet across.

Lucille dropped her backpack on this side. She hadn't even realized she'd been wearing it the entire time, and her back was beginning to feel sore. She managed to make her numb feet and ankles work well enough to carry her to the strange blue fabric. She ran her fingers along the edge. It was soft yet durable, something you might expect to see in the military.

Shouts came from farther up the stream. "Lucille! Lucy! Where are you?" It was her siblings.

"C' mere guys! Take a look at this!" Nathaniel and Magdalene came running over, the latter helping the former. They bent down next to Lucille.

"It looks like a pair of pants," Nathaniel noticed. The other two nodded. Magdalene looked at Lucille. "Why didn't you use the stepping stones?"

Lucille gave a small grin. "I couldn't contain my curiosity." Her sister smiled, understanding. Curiosity ran in the family.

"There's no buckle on the belt in these," Nathaniel was still looking at the pants. "Just a leather strip." The sisters looked over to see he was right. Magdalene frowned. "It looks like Italy's pants."

Lucille nodded seriously. "I bet someone lost a cosplay costume in the stream." Her siblings murmured statements of agreement and they continued on their way, grabbing their backpacks. The younger ones once again fell behind Lucille, chatting about Italy and cosplaying and what they were going to have for dinner tonight. The oldest was a bit (okay, more than a bit) of an introvert and didn't really like to talk. She was deep in thought. Should they have returned the cosplay costume to whomever it belonged to? No, they didn't know whose it was. Where was the shirt? Somewhere in the creek, maybe? She stopped short, her siblings bumping into her. They were about to leave the creek's side and head home.

"What is it, Lucy? Did you see something?" Magdalene asked her, worried. Lucille looked at them. "Where do you think the shirt is?" When she received only blank looks, she explained. "To the Italy cosplay costume. I think we should find it!"

Her siblings looked at her as though she had grown an extra head. "It's just a costume. Can't we buy one if you really want it? It would be way too big on all of us anyway." Nathaniel actually sounded logical for once. That was unusual. Lucille scowled at them. "It's not so we can wear it. It's for the adventure! I wanna do something fun on the last day of school before I hole myself in my room for the summer."

They looked at each other. She had a point. Finally, they shrugged. "I guess it can't hurt."

Their home was a two-story house in the middle of a forest. Their parents, who were rich, let them live alone because their older sister was so responsible (at least, they thought so). Even though they didn't live with their children, they still paid the water bill (which was high) and the electric bill (which was higher) as well as coming over for Christmas and birthdays (all of their birthdays were in February, so it wasn't that hard).

They dropped their off their school supplies in their rooms, Nathaniel was given a bandage for his foot, and before you could say 'pasta' they were back at the creek. They spent a couple hours looking for the cosplay shirt, finding pretty rocks, trying to pick up salamanders, and chasing schools of tiny fish around the deeper parts.

"I found it!" At Lucille's sudden shout, her siblings ran over. All of their feet were numb by now, but they were wearing waterproof shoes to protect them from, say, broken cosplay belt buckles.

They looked down at the shirt, which appeared to have an oddly shaped lump in the middle. Magdalene bent down and poked it. It squirmed a little. They all jumped back in shock. Lucille carefully crouched down near the bottom end of the shirt and extended her hand toward it. Her siblings bent down next to her to look inside. She lifted the flap to reveal what looked like a very young Italy of Hetalia.

* * *

**Hello! This is the author. This idea popped up in the back of my head and I couldn't ignore it. Lucille is based off me, Magdalene off my sister, and Nathaniel off my brother, but those are not our real names. However, we are all two years apart (me being the oldest) and were all born in February.**

**After reading this I realized I forgot to put in character descriptions, but couldn't find a way to incorporate them. So here they are:**

**Lucille: Lucy for short. Short for her age. Very light blue, almost gray eyes. Light brown hair that turns blonde at the bottom, and goes halfway down her back.**

**Magdalene: Maggie for short. Average height, same height as Lucy. Light sky blue eyes with gray touches. Light brown hair that almost (but not quite) reaches her shoulders.**

**Nathaniel: Nat for short. Tall for his age, same height as Lucy and Maggie. Light sky blue eyes. Light brown hair with tiny blonde streaks, short-ish but not touching his shoulders (about 1/4 inch longer than Japan's hair, about the same style). Wears an underarmour company baseball cap most of the time.**

**This is the first story I've posted here, so I'm not quite familiar with how the site works yet. Any advice is welcome!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to all my readers, especially those who reviewed! You may have noticed I reviewed to my own story. That was not me, that was my brother. Check my profile for more information on that.**

**I realized last chapter I forgot to add something in. Tetanus is a disease you can get from rust. I believe it is also known as lockjaw. It can be deadly, but in most places you are required to be vaccinated for it. I pulled this information out of the confines of my mind, so I apologize if it's wrong.**

**Special thanks to AwesomeHellee9 and HunnyBunny21 for their support! You guys are amazing, seriously. You rival the awesomeness of Prussia.**

* * *

Lucille dropped the shirt flap the moment she opened it, not giving Magdalene or Nathaniel a chance to see more than a flash of brown hair. "Hey!" Magdalene whispered to her sister. "What's in there? Open it up!"

She shook her head. "He's naked," she hissed. Nathaniel face-palmed and lifted the flap, while his sisters averted their eyes. "It looks like Chibitalia," he noticed.

"More of him than I will ever want to see," Lucille muttered.

"Whatever. His parents must be some serious Hetalia fans if they made him cosplay this young."

"Are you sure he's cosplaying?"

"No. He's in a shirt a million times too big on him and has a mini Italy wig. _Of course_ he's not cosplaying."

Magdalene rolled her eyes. Her siblings could be so immature sometimes. "We should take him home," At the astonished glances she received, you would have thought she'd suggested they pour tomato sauce in their eyes. "I don't know about you, but if _I_ were naked and helpless in the middle of the woods I'd want someone to find me." She huffed. Stupid, stupid siblings.

"He's not completely naked. He's got the shirt," Nathaniel murmured mutinously. Because Magdalene wasn't allowed to be right. He had to contradict her on everything. It was just the way the world worked.

Magdalene huffed again and scooped up the shirt containing the may-or-may-not-be cosplaying kid and stood up. She walked to their two-story house and practically threw open the door, her siblings following her inside. The shirt/kid was placed on the couch while Nathaniel hurried to his room to get something a little smaller. Lucille watched the sun begin to dip down the horizon before closing the shutters. Light was bad. It caused glares on computer screens and melted chocolate.

Nathaniel walked back in with a red underarmour shirt. "He can wear it as a dress!" If looks could shoot fire, he would have been burnt worse than Britain's scones. He frowned. "It's not like I have anything smaller, ya know. I'm not a little kid."

"You are mentally," Magdalene murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. Lucille giggled.

The girls in the room were saved from a thorough strangling by the shirt/kid, which picked that moment to squirm excessively and make little noises that sounded suspiciously like "Germany." Nathaniel ran over and lifted the shirt flap as high as he could, resulting in Lucille and Magdalene covering their eyes to prevent mental scarring.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I promise I'll tell you everything I know! Just please don't kill me! I'm a virgin! I'll be no fun to kill! We're practically related! I have relatives in… um… where am I?" A very long message of surrender came from the shirt.

"America." Nathaniel responded, dumbfounded.

"Well, I have relatives in Brooklyn! See, we're—"

Magdalene gritted her teeth and walked over to the now exposed kid. She ripped the shirt from her brother's hand and put it over the still-surrendering Italian. She had watched enough Hetalia to recognize an Italian when she saw one. She looked him in the eye and said, "You wouldn't happen to be related to the great Rome, would you?"

He stopped chattering and looked up at her. "You know Grandpa Rome? That is fantastico! I thought you were really mean and scary. Do you know how to make pasta?"

At this point they were all looking at the kid. This _couldn't_ be happening. Maybe his parents who made him cosplay also made him think he was Italy. Suddenly, Magdalene had a revolutionary idea. She reached out and pulled the Italian's curl.

"Ow! Owwwwwwwwwww! Bella, that hurts! Germany! Germany! Come save me!"

Magdalene retracted her hand with a satisfied look. "Yep. It's attached."

Lucille glared at her for a moment before bending down to look at the kid at eye level. "Is your name Italy?" He nodded. Nathaniel took a step closer. "Why are you so small? How did you get here?" Italy gave him a confused glance. "Um, I don't know? I'm not that small, am I? Aren't you just big?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. No one wanted to break the news to him. Finally Magdalene broke off to go find a mirror, muttering a few choice words in her head. _This isn't possible. I don't have Italy in my house. I am not insane. Yet._ She stopped in the middle of the upstairs hallway to bang her head on the wall a few times. That made her feel better.

If you were to enter the rooms of any of the people in that house, you would find them littered with old clothes and manga. There would be posters of their favorite Hetalia characters everywhere. Each person had their own bathroom and laptop, and in Lucille's case this meant she didn't leave her room except to eat. Seriously, why would anyone want to eat when they can watch anime instead?

Magdalene quickly grabbed a mirror off the vanity in her room. She was about to leave when she saw one of the many posters of Germany on her wall. Why couldn't they have gotten him instead? She sighed to herself and made her way back to the living room. Her siblings were gone when she returned. Italy looked at her, smiling. "They went to go make pasta! I wanted to, but they said no." He frowned at that last part. Magdalene shut her eyes and whipped the hand mirror out from behind her so that the reflective part was facing Italy.

The crying began before she could say anything. Good thing she was prepared for this. "Germanyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Germany save me I'm scared! Heeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllp Gerrrrrrrrrrrrrmanyyyy!"

Magdalene decided the best thing she could do right now was get him pasta. She put the mirror on the coffee table facedown and went into the kitchen. How could her siblings not hear him anyway? Lucille was wearing her special headphones that blocked outside sound and humming the tune of "The Game of Life" while making pasta. Nathaniel was nowhere in sight. She sighed and pulled one of the headphones away from her sister's ear. "Where's Nat?" Lucille pointed to the stairs. Magdalene let go of the headphone and went back to Italy. He was still crying. She sighed and sat down, trying to comfort him.

"Now I won't be able to play football with Germany."

"You can play football with Nathaniel."

"It won't be the same!"

"Deal with it."

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Magdalene clenched her teeth. She scolded herself for getting angry. _He's just a kid, and an Italian kid at that. Just a kid. Don't get mad. Go hit Nathaniel or something._ She brightened considerably at the idea. Nathaniel was always fun to hit. He got so upset after. They would chase each other around the house until Lucille stepped in and told them they were being irresponsible. Then they would team up against her.

"Pasta's ready!" Lucille's call from the kitchen interrupted Italy's crying and Magdalene's thoughts. She picked him up, thinking about how they would have to find him some better clothes soon. She put Italy down on a chair piled with books. None of them were manga. Those were too precious. Nathaniel ran downstairs with his headphones around his neck and joined them at the table. They said a quick grace and dug in.

Lucille looked at them disdainfully before speaking up. "I have a theory." Magdalene motioned for her to continue. "Hetalia was created in 2008, right?"

Nathaniel shrugged. "How am I supposed to know?" Lucille scowled at him.

"Well, I think that's why Italy is around five or six years old here. His real birthday was in 2008."

Italy looked confused, and Magdalene couldn't blame him. "What do you mean? I was born a long time before 2008!"

Nathaniel was very pleased. Too pleased, considering the circumstances. "Here, you're only a manga and an anime. This means I'm not the youngest anymore! I can boss all of you around!"

His sisters were giving him the look one normally receives when they are on Belarus's bad side. Italy still looked confused. Nathaniel was shoveling pasta into his mouth faster than should have been physically possible.

Lucille produced a Hetalia book from her back pocket and showed it to Italy, careful not to get any pasta sauce on it. "So I'm just a book?"

"Yes." said Nathaniel.

"No." said Magdalene.

"Just eat your pasta," said Lucille. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

No one had to tell them twice. Finding a character in your favorite series can be tiring. Likewise, realizing you are just a figment of some Japanese guy's imagination can also be tiring. Lucille would argue that Himaruya Hidekaz is not by any circumstances "some Japanese guy," but when does Lucille know anything? _Wonderful._ Thought Magdalene. _I'm having conversations with myself. I knew it. I'm going insane. This means I must be able to tell the future._

Everyone finished eating and went to their bedrooms. It was decided that Italy would sleep in Nathaniel's room because Lucille moved too much and Magdalene's room had too much Germany.

Magdalene didn't really care who he slept with, mostly because she was too tired to care about anything at that moment. Time must have sped up while they were eating, because it was already midnight. She flopped onto her bed and stared at one of the many Germanys on the wall. How did he deal with him? She was going to have to watch all the Hetalia episodes at least fifty-seven times to understand it. She had so many questions. How does a Hetalia character wash up on a creek bed in America? It was probably Britain's fault. In the fanfictions, everything magic-related was always Britain's fault.

This was going to be one heck of an "adventure" as Lucille had called it earlier. The last thing she thought before she fell asleep was whether the other Hetalia characters existed too, and if they did, would they be mad when they found out Italy was missing? She smiled a little at the thought of meeting the rest of them.

* * *

**I started this on a whim and now have nowhere to go. Any and all ideas are welcome. This happens to me kind of a lot...**

**Warning: Updates are likely to be few and far between after this. I have a bunch of other ideas cramming themselves into my head like this one did. Plus, after winter break I have school to deal with. Not to mention the midterms. Ugh.**

**Thanks again to all of you! Remember to review and Happy Holidays!**


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